After J.J. Abrams controversially rewrote the Star Trek universe, launching an alternate timeline in which Spock's homeworld "Vulcan" was blown up, William Shatner led a campaign to rename one of the two moons of Pluto "Vulcan". The SETI Project, which discovered the new moons, had offered an online contest to decide the name of the new moons.

Also endorsed by the actor who played Spock, Leonard Nimoy, the campaign to name one of the moons "Vulcan" after the Roman god of fire and smithery (Greek: Hephaestus), managed to drive the name up to the top of the voting.

But ultimately The SETI Institute refused to name the moon Vulcan. It pointed out that Vulcan had little to do with the God of the underworld (Greek: Hades; Roman: Pluto) unlike the names it selected.

The name "Vulcan" was rejected for more underworldly names. [Image Source: SETI]

And it points out that Vulcan was already used as the name for a hypothetical planet that was once thought to exist between the Sun and Mercury, so the name might be confusing. There's an ongoing scientific debate over whether so-called intra-Mercurial planetoids or "vulcanoids" -- including Vulcan -- exist.

The (International Astronomical Union) gave serious consideration to this name, which happens to be shared by the Roman god of volcanoes. However, because that name has already been used in astronomy, and because the Roman god is not closely associated with Pluto, this proposal was rejected.

The names of the new moons leave 4 out of the 5 known moons of Pluto with underworld-related names. One of the new moons is named "Styx" after the river to the underworld. Another is named "Kerberos" (Greek: Cerberus) after the multi-headed dog that inhabited the underworld. Two other moons are named after Nix (the anglization of "Nyx"), the godess of the night (who resided in the underworld), and her child Charon (Roman: Chairon) whom she bore from her brother/lover Erebus, the god of darkness. Charon served as boatman to the underworld, ferrying the souls of the dead to Pluto.

Vulcan was destroyed in the new Star Trek reboot. [Image Source: Bad Robot]

The seemingly odd moon out is Hydra, which was named after the serpent like monster which was slain by Hercules (Heracles). The Hydra, a child of a Gorgon (snake-woman) inhabited a cave and had relatively little to do with underworld.

Nix and Hydra were named back in 2006 after their discovery by the Hubble space telescope.

II. Will Shatner is Mad; Styx is Thrilled

William Shatner echoed the sentiments of many Trekkies, voicing frustration and the naming rejection. He posts on Twitter:

So they name a moon Kerebus because there's already a Cerebus asteroid but a mythological planet knocks out Vulcan?

However, some praised SETI for maintaining the historical context of Vulcan and the underworldly naming of Pluto. The quote from Mr. Shatner refers to a comment by Mark Showalter of SETI, who said in a comment to the Associated Press, "We might have craters called Sulu and Spock and Kirk and McCoy and so on."

Will Shatner is mad about the rejection.

The International Astronomy Union's (IAU; the organization that governs space naming) rules are relatively rigid regarding the naming of planets, planetoids, moons, and mountains on planets. However, they are relatively lax to naming craters -- one crater on Pluto has already been named "Mickey" after the famous character from The Disney Comp. (DIS).

One group who is pleased with the new names is the 80s "hair rock" band Styx. Tommy Shaw, guitarist and songwriter for the band, enthused about this profit-making opportunity to UltimateClassicRock, remarking, "Styx is proud to accept this new heavenly chart position as we add orbiting Pluto to our ever expanding touring map. As always we have our fans to thank for it and I predict a new Styx T-shirt in the making!"

Paid propaganda does't count.http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler...And this review doesn't include physic-nonsense like falling from moon orbit, mismatched plot holes (badly connected; disappeared saboteur after one job) and more. The movie is a purely put together kid's work of action scenes and some (not reasonable) story to get them connected. You gotta be an elementary schooler to be amazed.

While I agree for the most part on your review, I have additional problems, as a former Physics student, and yet, I still consider both movies to be a lot of fun. I liked them both. They aren't of the caliber of other ST episodes, but they are good for just suspending your disbelief and enjoying the show. Well, except for the immensely stupid wall walking. I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to accept that. That's just the amateur physicist in me.

Which translates to "dumb it down into a CGI action flick for your average American idiot who thinks Fast and Furious 6 is the best film of the year."

"I didn't like this film nearly as much as the first. It was formulated to provide continuous action and any of the character interaction that makes ST special was just incidental during heavy action where it garnered no laughs at all in the theater I was in. "Star Trek Into Darkness" was designed to appeal to a mass audience. From my perspective, that was a huge mistake. The film was dumbed down for mass audiences that need things blowing up every second to maintain their attention span.

I really liked the first film because it did a great job at being a classic Star Trek reboot, bringing back the characters, their quirks, and their interrelationships which was a significant and important part of the original series.

This is a Star Trek that apparently needs explosions every ten minutes to keep the audience interested, most of whom are not Trekkers. Hot blonds and Kirk having threesomes and endless "booms, bangs, and pows!" is the equation for getting teen males in the seats and having the ridiculous love story between "NuSpock" and "NuUhura" gets the teen girls in the seats. Having Kirk act like a whiny emo kid keeps all of them in the seats because now they can identify with him. "Parents suck! LOL!"

This is a predictable formula sci-fi film with predictable formula dialog utilizing characters and even plot lines that someone else created mixed in with some great special effects. This is 180 degrees from what Roddenberry created: daring ideas, imaginative concepts and innovative characters and dialog with lackluster special effects, the best that they could do. CGI has allowed bubblegum where once intelligent plots were required."

Put simply, the current Star Trek movie is Transformers with a slightly better plot.

If you don't believe me, remember that Khan transports directly from Earth to the Klingon homeworld but everyone else needs a ship for some reason. This is a Universe where all distances can be covered in mere seconds with a warp drive, where the phasers were stolen from Star Wars, where the plot has more holes than a sieve, and where Spock is clearly insane from the illogical stuff the writers dumped into the move. It's pure spectacle with little substance.

The first movie was decent enough because, I think, because Abrams had no choice but to dish out origin stories for everyone. It required good acting and storytelling. The second movie could dispense with both.

Abrams swapped them. In Star Trek, Federation ships have a small number of phasers that need to be charged and which are then emitted in a long duration beam. The new movies replaced these with dozens of short duration beams (i.e. blasters) which is exactly what you see in a Star Wars movie.

I've been watching Star Wars since the 80s as a kid - when you see the Enterprise shooting lots of blasters, you immediately start wondering where Dark Vader is.

quote: Which translates to "dumb it down into a CGI action flick for your average American idiot who thinks Fast and Furious 6 is the best film of the year."

Oh, I praise you, WinstonSmith. You sure know what's up.

I do miss the moral and philosophical sides to Star Trek that brought me to love ST:TNG so much. They tried to bring it back with Enterprise, but missed the mark. Now, the current movies are nothing but action movies for the masses. It's fun, but it's just not the same.

Well, at least many of the animes coming over lately have that aspect. It's kind of sad to be an anime fan at 41, but I really like philosophical and social commentary type stories, and they just aren't anywhere else in the media anymore. Even sci-fi books lack that these days.

I don't think something that has spanned five decades, has influenced art and science and pop culture, and sparked the imagination of and inspired billions could be called a "niche".

Yes JJ Abrams movies have been commercial successes no doubt. But I'm sorry, I have to believe someone with imagination and creativity and passion for the franchise could have told good stories and stayed true to the tenants of Star Trek while also making a commercial success.

Sadly, Josh Whedon was too busy :)

To be honest when I made that post last night (or was it this morning?) over a couple of cocktails I just assumed I would be -1'd and flamed down for being an "old hater stuck in the past" or something. Instead I'm met with similarly minded intelligent replies by others who 'get it' and share a passion for good science fiction.

I think it is time for "Star Trek" to make a mighty leap forward another 1,000 years into the future, to a time when starships do not look like rides in a 1970s amusement arcade, when aliens do not look like humans with funny foreheads, and when wonder, astonishment and literacy are permitted back into the series. Star Trek was kind of terrific once, but now it is a copy of a copy of a copy.

With the entire Trek universe available to him the best that can be done is another Kahn story? OK. Add the word copy again.

I agree that the use of Vulcan for this is not the best use of the name but not because of the lousy Abrams remakes.

I think they should reserve the names for more relevant and better uses. With all the planets being discovered in the universe, why relegate Vulcan to a very small, fairly insignificant moon of Pluto? As a trekker I would like to see ST recognized but I think they could find a better example.

Much like Enterprise for the name of a shuttle. Yes, it was cool to get it named Enterprise but the name would have been better served to be on one of the actual working shuttles and not a limited use, testing prototype.

Personally, I don't like the Abrams remakes. What is the deal with him and alternate realities?! Like Lost didn't end badly enough...

With the Abrams remakes Roddenberry has rolled over in his grave yet again. Rick Berman was the first to dishonor the franchise and Roddenberry's vision. Now, Abrams is piling on. ugh!

Tried to crowbar in as much fluff, cotton candy character conflicts and CGI action as he could get away with!

If he had REALLY wanted to try he would not have polluted the Trek franchise and created a completely new franchise but, oh no, that was too hard! But he felt the need to muck with characters and universe that were 50(?) years in development. Yes, he tried. He tried too hard and in the wrong places!

All in all your opinion really doesn't matter as you are not a Trek fan. If you were you would not have said that about The Voyage Home.